Guest Post: All Is Well

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”– Aldous Huxley

I woke up this past Saturday morning and opened my local paper to find out that all was well. An Associated Press article declared a healthy jobs market, fantastic auto sales, a surging housing market, and a stock market rocketing to new all-time highs. What’s not to love? If the mainstream media says the economy is as good as new, it must be so. Why should we let facts get in the way of a good storyline? The stock market has surged to 2007 highs, so the country’s employment situation must be strong.

The chart above tells a slightly different story. The S&P 500 has regained almost all its losses since October 2007 as Bernanke and Washington politicians chose to save Wall Street and screw over Main Street. The working age population has risen by 12.8 million since 2007 and there are 4 million less Americans employed. The December Household Survey from the BLS being touted by the mainstream media as proof of a jobs recovery told a slightly different story:

The number of unemployed Americans went up by 126,000 in one month

Another 169,000 Americans left the workforce evidently because their stock market gains made them wealthy.

There are 250,000 more Americans unemployed than there were in September 2012.

There are 6,000 less Americans employed than there were in October 2012.

This is just the picture over the last few months. The picture since 2007 is beyond horrific, as more than 10 million Americans have left the workforce. Everyone knows people willingly leave the labor force when the economy crashes and their net worth is reduced by 30%. Who needs a paying job then? Just because there are 101 million working age Americans not working and the labor participation rate of 63.6% is at a three decade low, certainly doesn’t mean we aren’t experiencing a tremendous jobs recovery, according to the mainstream media.

The deep thinkers at CNBC, Fox, CNN and the rest of the captured corporate status quo mouthpieces, propagate the false storyline that the reason for Americans leaving the workforce is Baby Boomers retiring. Considering the average Boomer has $90,000 of total savings and 28% of them have less than $1,000 saved, I suspect there are few willingly leaving the workforce. The Boomers have taken on 4 million additional jobs since the low point in 2009, while the 16 to 54 year olds have lost an additional 2.9 million jobs. Does this reflect a strengthening jobs market? Does the fact that real hourly wages have fallen for the last two years reflect an improving labor market?

Inquiring minds might wonder how auto sales could be booming when there are 4 million less employed Americans and real wages are falling. Of course, mainstream media faux journalists aren’t paid to inquire, think critically, or even think at all. They are paid to regurgitate propaganda designed to keep the masses sedated and ignorant. The “fabulous” rebound in auto sales has been buoyed by the return of easy money lending, even to deadbeat borrowers with lousy credit histories. There is a reason the Federal government hasn’t attempted to spin off their 80% control of Ally Financial (aka GMAC, Ditech, Rescap). The Feds are attempting to manufacture a recovery by doling out subprime auto loans to anyone who can scratch an X on a loan document and offering 0% loans over 7 years to good credits. How exactly does a finance company generate a profit by making 0% loans for seven years and approving loans to people with no means of paying them back? Experian recently noted that 44% of ALL auto loans have been to subprime borrowers over the last year. When a financing company doesn’t have to worry about profits or loan losses, everyone gets a Cadillac Escalade. The losses on these subprime loans will be in the billions when the next leg down in this Crisis hits. The taxpayer will unknowingly pick up the tab, just as they have been doing for the last five years. The trend in this chart is nothing but a Federal government induced fraud.

PhD in Stupidity

The Federal government induced sham auto recovery is small peanuts compared to the bubble they are blowing in the higher education realm. Since the Federal government took over 85% of the student loan market in 2009, the debt outstanding has surged to over $1 trillion from below $600 billion. The Feds don’t care about credit risk or loan losses. You’re on the hook for the losses. The purpose for doubling the amount of student loans was to artificially lower the unemployment rate by removing as many people from the labor force as possible. The 600,000 University of Phoenix enrollees getting their on-line master’s degrees in basket weaving while sitting in their mother’s basement, subsidized with $20,000 loans from the taxpayer, didn’t count as unemployed.

Enrollment in these diploma mills has begun to plunge, as the scam has been revealed. The New York Times reported that:

“Enrollments at the University of Phoenix and in the for-profit sector over all have been declining in the last two years, partly because of growing competition from other online providers, including nonprofit and public universities, and a steady drumroll of negative publicity about the sector’s recruiting abuses, low graduation rates and high default rates … including many charges that the schools enrolled students who had almost no chance of succeeding, to get their federal student aid.”

Enrolling students who have no chance of graduating is exactly what the Obama Administration and the status quo want.

Based upon the chart below you would think the United States is producing the brightest bunch of young people in U.S. history. Nothing could be further from the truth. Only 43% of the 1.66 million private and public school students who took the college-entrance exam posted scores showing they are prepared to do well in college, according to data released by the College Board, the nonprofit group that administers the SAT. The SAT data mirror scores from the ACT college-entrance exam which showed about 75% of students failed to meet college-readiness standards. If SAT scores are at decade lows, how could college enrollment be at record highs? Our government controlled public school system is graduating functionally illiterate dullards and the government is then subsidizing these subprime students as they matriculate into substandard colleges across the land. Approximately 3.4 million seniors are graduating from our high schools every year. The 1.66 million seniors who took the SAT exam are the cream of the crop. If the 50% of students who took the SAT exam could score so pitifully, imagine how dimwitted the 50% of students who didn’t even take the exam must be. The upshot of these tests are that only 700,000 of all the graduating high school seniors (21%) are capable of getting a B minus or above in college.

Think about that for one second. Only 21% of all graduating high school seniors are intelligent enough to get a B minus in college, but 70% of them are enrolling in college. Of course enrolling in college and graduating college are two different things. Only 30% actually graduate college. The other 40% get drunk, fornicate, sleep late, fail, rack up gobs of debt, and then drop out. There are approximately 13 million 18 to 24 year olds enrolled in college today and at least 6 million of them have little to no chance of graduating. If the Federal government was not subsidizing them with loans, they would rightfully be looking for jobs geared to their intellectual capabilities. Would tuition rates be soaring if there were 6 million less drones matriculating into one of the 4,000 mostly mediocre higher learning institutions in this country?

The Federal government bureaucrats who think they can control the levers of finance to steer our economy to greater heights are creating a new subprime bubble. The absolute implosion of the for profit diploma mills, that have fed like bloated pigs at the Federal loan trough, is the Bear Stearns moment for the massive student loan losses that will be foisted on the shoulders of the American taxpayer. The deceptive schemes, fraud, and financial aid manipulation practices of the publicly traded diploma mills – Corinthian Colleges (down 90%), ITT (down 90%), Apollo Group (down 80%) and DeVry (down 60%) have been revealed, as their ill- gotten profits have evaporated and their stock prices have crashed. Enrollment at the king of worthless online degrees, the University of Phoenix, has plunged from 600,000 to 400,000 and they are closing 115 of their 227 campuses. The proof that much of the student loan bubble has been created by these for-profit shysters can be seen by the fact that 60% of all student loans are owed by people over 30 years old, with 33% owed by people over 40 years old. These people bought into the re-training fallacy perpetuated by government drones and mainstream media mouthpieces.

But still the Federal government continues to blow the bubble bigger and bigger as non-revolving consumer debt has reached all-time highs. Peter Thiel recently compared this bubble to the housing bubble we are still dealing with:

“We have a bubble in education, like we had a bubble in housing…everybody believed you had to have a house, they’d pay whatever it took. Today, everybody believes that we need to go to college, and people will pay– whatever it takes. There are all sorts of vocational careers that pay extremely well today, so the average plumber makes as much as the average doctor. I did not realize how screwed up the education system is. We now have $1 trillion in student debt in the U.S. Cynically you can say it’s paid for $1 trillion of lies about how good education is.”

Delinquency rates have already begun to skyrocket as the diploma mill scam implodes, dropouts can’t make loan payments with their EBT cards and even graduates from legitimate colleges are stuck waitressing at TGI Fridays and can’t make their payments. Millions of millenials are ensnared in the chains of debt servitude, with no chance of escape.

Delinquency rates on student loans made in the past two years stand at 15%, according to FICO, versus 12.4% for loans made from 2005 to 2007. This is proof that loans doled out since the Federal government took control of the market have been distributed willy-nilly in a frantic effort to artificially reduce the unemployment rate. Average student- loan debt last year rose to $27,253 from $17,233 in 2005, with almost 605 of bank managers surveyed in December expecting delinquencies to worsen in six months, according to FICO. Andrew Jennings, chief analytics officer of Fair Issac, said in a statement:

“This situation is simply unsustainable and we’re already suffering the consequences. When wage growth is slow and jobs are not as plentiful as they once were, it is impossible for individuals to continue taking out ever-larger student loans without greatly increasing the risk of default.”

When subprime mortgages blew up, at least there was collateral to alleviate some of the losses. When the subprime auto loans blow up, at least there will be vehicles to repossess. Student loan debts are the ultimate in subprime, with no collateral and millions of jobless debtors. The situation is much worse than the delinquency numbers reveal. More than half of the student loans are in deferment, grace periods, or forbearance, meaning they are not currently requiring repayment. This means the true delinquency rates are twice as high as the reported figure of 15%. What happens next can be succinctly summed up by the esteemed economist John Kenneth Galbraith:

The involuntary taxpayer bailout for this Federal Government created disaster will exceed $200 billion after the shit is done hitting the fan.

Do You Want Pepperoni on that Housing Recovery?

Everywhere I turn I’m hearing about the strong housing recovery that is propelling our economy, generating jobs and spurring a resurgence in retail spending by the millions of deleveraged consumers. Wall Street paid economists on CNBC, NYT economic “journalists”, and even the Fox News blond bimbo brigade all assure me the housing market is in a strong recovery and it’s the best time to buy. There are just two small problems with the story. None of the propaganda spouted by the mouthpieces of the kleptocracy is supported by the facts. And what little uptick in sales and prices that has occurred is due to collusion, fraud and manipulation by Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and connected crony corporate interests.

I challenge anyone to show me the tremendous housing recovery on the new home sales chart below. New homes sales have “surged” to an annual pace of 369,000, only 74% below the 2006 peak and about 50% below the long term average. New home sales fell in December at the fastest rate since February 2011. Existing home sales also fell in December, are pacing at 1999 levels, and are still 30% below 2006 levels. In a country of 115 million households, with mortgage rates at all-time lows, there were a total of 26,000 new homes sold in December, and only 10,000 of them were actually built. For some perspective, new home sales are at the same level as they were in 1967 when the U.S. population was 200 million.

The kleptocrats’ master plan has multiple dimensions designed to lure unsuspecting dupes back into the market. The Federal Reserve has bought over $1 trillion of toxic mortgage debt, freeing the criminal Wall Street banks to start raping the American public again. Bernanke has driven mortgage rates to near all-time lows by tripling his balance sheet, with promises to quadruple it before the end of the year. By driving real interest rates below zero Bernanke has the dual purpose of driving people into the stock market for a positive return and luring “investors” into the housing market.

The Wall Street part of this grand scheme has been to delay the foreclosure process on millions of homes, thereby restricting the amount of inventory on the market. By artificially creating an inventory “shortage”, they have been able to drive prices higher, with the purpose of trying to get the 25% of underwater homeowners back to breakeven. The Treasury Department, through their captured entities (Fannie, Freddie, FHA) are guaranteeing 95% of all mortgages, with the FHA requiring only 3.5% down payments, with the hundreds of billions in present and future losses being incurred by the American taxpayer. You’ve heard of the cycle of life. This is the government cycle of fraud.

The last part of the plan has been to lure investors into the market. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have sold huge blocks of foreclosed homes to connected friends of Wall Street at below market rates so they could convert them to rental properties. This has further artificially reduced inventory available for sale, and jacked up prices by as much as 20% in the former bubble markets of Phoenix, Las Vegas and California. Investors and flippers account for 30% of all home sales, with another 24% of home sales listed as distressed sales. Sure sounds like a healthy market to me. With this full court press by the powers that be to produce a housing recovery, the chart below reveals the utter ineptitude of their effort. Real home prices, even using the fake government manipulated CPI, have barely budged from their lows and sit at 1990 levels. Real home prices are still down 40% from their 2006 highs.

If a true housing recovery was underway how could mortgage purchase applications be at 1997 levels? If housing was recovering there would be more mortgage applications. It really is that simple. Do supposed journalists have any critical thinking skills or are they just playing their assigned role in this kleptocracy?

Essentially, the kleptocrats’ primary purpose has been to protect and enhance the wealth of the oligarchs that control Wall Street, Washington DC, and corporate America. They have achieved their goal, while destroying the middle class and sentencing unborn generations to a life sentence of debt servitude.

If we have been experiencing a solid jobs recovery, strong automobile sales, a resurgence of consumer spending, and rising home sales and home prices, how could GDP be negative in the 4th quarter? The mainstream media immediately declared it the best negative GDP of all-time. They pompously declared that GDP would have been positive if government defense spending hadn’t plummeted. These disgraceful excuses for journalists failed to mention the huge surge in government and defense spending in the 3rd quarter just prior to the presidential election that accounted for a 3.1% GDP and helped get Obama re-elected. A less trusting person than myself might question why the surge in government spending prior to the election.

Did the mainstream media government mouthpieces question the absolutely laughable 0.60% inflation rate used to calculate the 4th quarter GDP? No they didn’t. That wouldn’t support their storyline of recovery. Using even the bastardized CPI figure of 2.0% would have produced a -1.5% GDP figure. Using real inflation figures over time reveals what every middle class family in America knows in their bones – the economy has essentially been in recession since the early 2000s. The massive dose of debt issued by the government has masked the true nature of our economic decline.

All is not well. Any awake and aware citizen knows the economic, financial, societal and social fabric of this country is in tatters, and is getting progressively worse by the day. Since this supposed economic recovery began in mid-2009, the country has added 4 million jobs, more than 100% of which went to workers over the age of 55, forced into the workforce by Bernanke’s zero interest rate policy. Over this same time frame of economic recovery, 16 million Americans went on food stamps. How could this possibly happen if the economy has been recovering? Either the government and mainstream media are lying about the economic recovery or the Obama administration has been fraudulently encouraging people to go on food stamps to win votes in elections. Which of these truths is more palatable to your sensibilities?

It comes down to this. The monied interests, high financiers, corporate interests, captured politicians, government apparatchiks, and corporate media have a vested interest in maintaining the corrupt and destructive status quo. They have become rich and powerful through their manipulation of the currency, ravenous sacking of the national wealth, destruction of the working middle class, and ability to use mass media propaganda to convince the willfully ignorant masses to learn to love their debt servitude. Our once proud, liberty minded, self-sufficient nation of freedom loving individuals has devolved into a kleptocracy, where a small cadre of powerful men run the show solely to increase the personal wealth and political power of officials and the ruling class at the expense of the wider population. They are essentially running a state sponsored embezzlement and Ponzi scheme to pillage the wealth of the dumbed down, sedated, technologically distracted masses. Our entire system has been captured and we are entering the final stages of decay and ultimately a day of reckoning where the guilty and innocent alike will suffer the awful consequences of currency collapse, death and destruction on a wide scale, and likely civil and world war.

“The Fed is now engaged in a control fraud, and what appears to be racketeering in conjunction with a few big investment banks. They may have entered into it with good intentions, but they seem to have been turned towards deceit and corruption. This is not an historical event, but an ongoing theft in conjunction with a number of Wall Street banks, and politicians whom they have paid off through a corrupt system of campaign financing and influence peddling. This is nothing new in history if one reads the un-sanitized version. But people never think it can happen today, that somehow yesterday things were different, as if one is looking at some distant, foreign land. This is a facet of the illusion of general progress.

We are now in the cover-up stage of a scandal, similar to Watergate when the White House was stone-walling. The difference is that the corruption and capture of the government is much more pervasive now, and includes a significant portion of the mainstream media, so meaningful reform is difficult. Most of what has transpired so far has been designed to distract and placate the people in their righteous anger. The Fed deceives the Congress and the public, turns a blind eye to glaring conflicts of interest, and is essentially debasing the currency while transferring the wealth of the nation to their cronies. And still the regulators do not enforce the laws they have, and Washington drags its feet while accepting buckets of cash from the perpetrators.” – Jesse

The entire system is corrupt to its core. Both political parties, regulatory agencies, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, and mainstream media are participants in this enormous fraud. They grow more desperate and bold by the day. The lies, misinformation and propaganda being spewed on a daily basis become more outrageous and audacious. They are using the Big Lie method on a grand scale. They frantically need to lure the muppets into the stock market and the housing market to keep the game going a little longer. You can sense we are reaching a tipping point. The system they have created is mathematically unsustainable. Therefore, it will not be sustained. The world is going mad. Governments across the globe are all trying to out debase each other. Austerity and inflation for the peasants and caviar and champagne for the Davos class is the chosen path. All is not well. Ben Bernanke and the oligarchs running the show will be immortalized in history books forever when this farce comes to a spectacular conclusion.

the only thing being left for future generations is the collapse or a world war. The next generation won't have enough money to pay back the debt when these fine folks running the insane asylum are done. There's only one reset button and that's armeggedon.

"Clash of Civilizations"...and it's "not being left for the future"...it's been going on for 12 years "in the open" now. Had a lot of time to think about my faith...and other's. Must say i haven't been disappointed in mine...not that i was ever prepared to have it tested of course. Luckily "this isn't the first time" for me. Can't WAIT for the next Hollywood production. what's that? "it's already been made"? wow. really? and "people pay for that?" really? i thought the idea was to ESCAPE from reality...

I am finding it heard to imagine how powerfuly effective our economy might be if were not burdened with political corruption, lobiyists, unions, the IRS, foreign wars, the welfare entitelment class, etc......

I am finding it heard to imagine how powerfuly effective our economy might be if were not burdened with political corruption, lobiyists, unions, the IRS, foreign wars, the welfare entitelment class, etc......

Just look back to the 1800s...biggest, most powerful expansion of wealth in the history of man. But eventually the ticks breed and overwhelm the host.

This was useful data. The real estate industry have been pushed more and more towards outright vile corruption by the apocalypse ongoing, and just lately they have been willing to lie more than usual.

It's very useful to have the full, pure data. There is no housing recovery. There are just middle level folks at private equity firms trying to secure their own jobs by creating a new project of buying bulk 1000s of foreclosures and then spending money to rent them out. That the numbers don't work is not important. That will be discovered by their company later, after they have "project manager" on their resume and can find another victim.

only if you marry it...reminds of the young bull and old bull, top of the hill...young bull spots a herd of cows...young bull says "lets run down and fuck a cow"...old bull..."lets walk down and fuck them all"

Major US retailers closing anywhere from 15% to 25% of their stores nationwide. Resulting in massive layoffs and a massive drain on unemployment benefits and EBT cards when the well is already beyond dry.

Maybe the stocks will "perform" because a round about 20% contraction of all retail in the US is somehow good for the corporate bottom line but who gives a flying fuck?

Dam, thought it was gonna be Rick Astley. You gotta love that song.."Never gonna give you up" And a ginger ninja too!! Nice avatar! I wish I could be beamed right into the heart of the 80's. Best goddam decade.. period!

Let's see. The governement creates the SAFE Act and Dodd-Frank to stifle the evil mortgage brokers and curtail their "predatory" lending practices. Those 30 and 40 year old borrowers were duped and taken advantage of with those nasty Pay Option Arms. They didn't know better when they signed on the dotted line. The governemnt needs to make this right.

Now, the government champions lending money to 18 year olds..."BABIES"...and the product of our exemplary educational system and union backed teachers, and most of which cannot make correct change for a dollar. Since the Bernanke Economy sucks and there are no jobs, the government convinces the "I can't make change for a dollar" generation to borrow $20,000, $50,000, $100,000 dollars and to get a "higher" education and subsequently enjoy a high paying job in a lucrative profession. They make the loans to CHILDREN and, of course, then deny them the relief of bankruptcy when the truth/scam is revealed and no magic job surfaces. So...exactly WHO is the true predatory lender?

Today Parker Brothers announced plans to update the popular Monopoly board game by replacing the antiquated Iron piece with a Pussy Cat. Hasbro, maker of the mystery board game Clue, has responded by replacing the Gun with Scissors.

Can someone tell me why ZHers were loving on Kyle Bass the other week when he said that he is long real estate, but now you guys are agreeing with this article about RE going down the tubes? Honest question.

Can someone tell me why ZHers were loving on Kyle Bass the other week when he said that he is long real estate, but now you guys are agreeing with this article about RE going down the tubes? Honest question.

Just chatted with my brother, who's business is in auto parts recycling (and on the verge of collapse). The argument the author makes about car sales is valid -- at dealerships he works with their only requirement for a sale is that the purchaser make one payment, then it's off their books. Doesn't matter if they've filed for BK recently, or even if they've had a car repo'd in the past few months -- they can come back and do it again, and again.

An auto parts recycling business "should be" pretty good one would think.

Our business (importing bearings to Peru) DOES follow the economic cycle there as well, at least to a pretty fair degree, (their economy is still good, our business is doing well, at least for now...). One would think that auto parts would be a good business when times are bad, but maybe people don't even have enough money TO FIX THEIR CARS when things are bad?

That's exactly the case. His business has been around for 25+ years, and it's very counter cyclical -- people repair more when times are bad, keep what they have longer, and buy cheaper used cars that have been repaired. Initially post 2008 he saw an uptick in business, but less than he usually sees, then from 2010 to date, it just keeps getting worse and worse.

It's a combination of people not having money to fix cars and doing without, and people who wouldn't ordinarily be able to get into a nice car getting stealth support (ie being able to finance at $0 down with subprime FICO and then skip payments, when before they'd be luck to buy new parts.) Finally cash for clunkers destroyed a lot of the future stocks of used cars and the need to repair them.

Honestly I don't think he'll make it another year, and he and one other company are the last men standing in our area, dozens of others have already dropped out.

I should have bought clunkers and sent them to Peru... Peru is one of those places "where old cars go to die."

That (your brother's business) is bad, 25 years in business and then pow, going, going, gone.

My own brother had a gift shop in a touristy town in the SE, he closed his store down about a year and had to get a job, and he is in the "5%". Neither he nor I would EVER start a business in the USA now.

And I read that the Obamacare burdens are going to make things even worse in January 2014.

"Going Galt" and buying gold seems the only response now, I am not (how to say this...?) "psychologically fit" to get a job now (too old). I can only hope that our daughter and her generation have it better than it looks from up here...

The "clunkers" for cash for clunkers were anything but. The rules were pretty narrow and basically took slight used cars (often still in warranty, just a few years old) and destroyed them. So they wouldn't be afforable, no opportunity lost there.

I told my daughter that it's a 2/2 program for college or nothing (2 year CC, 2 year state), and that the world will suck until she's nearly 30, and then opportunities will abound.

Three year old Toyota Corollas would have done very well for me sending them to Peru, I wish I had thought of that then.

Our daughter (only kid) is 25, finished college (yeah, we paid for it), but at least she has a decent job, is taking care of herself in another city and is NOT IN JAIL. That was all my parents asked of me.

Chris Hedges says we should have taken Osama alive ? They lost one helicopter as it was .... risk compromising the mission .... to give that Ahole a publicity stunt .... if the Pakistanis had arrived .... they would probably have killed the seals .... and let Osama escape ? Chris Hedges criticizes Obama .... yeah .... but, from the left of never ! I'm toying with the idea .... of exposing Chris Hedges .... for the Pulitzer piece of shit prize he is !

Was ObL's doctor a member here? Was it slewie the pi rat? I thought it might be. All you guys chipped in on the dialysis bill, right? That's how you are so well informed. I knew it had to be something like that.

I gave you a thumbs up for the "one helicopter" because it was a way for our military/industrial complex to leak the stealth shit to the Chinese they hadn't allowed already via the backdoor so they could ask for some Trillions more in 2015 to "counter the threat".

I wish I were a stupid moron living in a trailer park living off food stamps, watching my big screen TV, and planning a trip the bank to get a mortgage to buy me a fuckin shiny new house on a real foundation....with 0% down etc etc (and a free pizza).

Oh ya, I would drive to the bank in my new chevy truck with all the options.

Well done and for most of us here a good refresher of where we are and where we are going. Too bad only about 10% of the people would even be able to comprehend what is in this article. I must admit when I go into the city it looks like 2005 all over again. So few have a clue as to what is coming down. At some point they with "get it". Of course then, it is too late.

Honestly, you lot are the biggest pessimists around. I've never seen such a group of tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist chicken-little nutbags in my life. If things are so bad, why are the markets doing so well, eh? Don't just take my word for it, maybe you should have a read of these non-hilarious credible sources and cheer up a little!:

i'm going to guess that you are a student or a government or ngo employee. on the other hand you might also be a worker bee for a large multinational or work within commuting distance to DC. but odds are very remote that you are a small businessman.

Oh, and keep reading the Guardian. It's going to be fucking hilarious how they spin their "left wing" sensibilities against the reality of Greece, Spain and Italy when it actually kicks off. Top tip, you muppet: Guardian came out against the Spanish anarchists and good old George when they were actually fighting. It's run by cowardly twats, shills and scum. Deal with it.

p.s. Tunisia is just about to boil over, and the Graud is well known for it's hatchet job on Assange ~ they're all cunts, and there's only two of them who has done any real journalism in the last decade. And yes, have spent time in the bar listening to their crap.

Ask them about the £30mil fund in the Caymen islands that keeps them going and tax some time - cunts.

Did you have a look at those sources? Comedy gold. I worry that these fuckwits really believe what they are writing.

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Actually really really very deeply concerned now dudes. Trying to fully appreciate every day of peace I have as it passes. Even the admittedly morbid and guilty satisfaction of indulging myself in this discourse of disaster is quickly evaporating as the full ramifications are revealed day by day. I find little solace in trying to discuss these portents with friends and family, so comprehensively have they been dazzled by bullshit. It's getting really upsetting. ZH starting to feel like a fucking reality support group.

If we make it, those that question and think and hope for better will be needed more than ever. No matter how badly you are beaten and how much you lose in the days to come, never let that spark go. It's the only good thing we wretched primates ever brought to the table.

The great rotation of money into stock and bond etc. Then use purchased assets of implied value to justify the value of the money used to buy it to begin with. You can apply the same principle to debt where if default is not permitted as happened in the sub prime crisis then it is considered an asset. To get to this point in all cases now an artificial unreal value was placed on something and it induced a rate of growth of value = a bigger number but still as insolvent as owing a single penny.

Now once this rate of applied valuation has risen the ability to get it down is near impossible without contracting the system. It is not even possible to remove it as it is now part of the dependency of the current economic system as it grew that without it, it dies. So you are not paying off the debt anytime soon in fact it will increase because without it the economic model would collapse yet again.

Frankly only a matter of time now before before enough people wake up to find all the bits of paper they have as an investment are worth nothing. This waking up really started in earnest in 2008 making the abilitiy to increase debt even further near impossible and with the flawed economic model it cannot return to normal.

Up steps QE to fill the void, indefnitely if needs be unless the level of debt per person can fill it instead. I could say the worst thing is for people to take on more debt but surely that in itself is a suicide pill?

SO now a reverse concept it, consider all the debt does not exist and then recalculate where the economy ended up. NOT GOOD AT ALL!

Don't worry, after all expenses the average American is left with $50.00 a month in the checking account. We will tax that as capital gains @ 100% and then we are going to redisign the credit rating system so that everyone can get a 100k credit line.

Like the article said, the whole system was designed in a way that would never work over the long haul and then put a bunch of crooks in charge and here we are probably 100x faster than what would've happend naturally. Didn't really want to see it in my lifetime but it's unavoidable now.

Essentially, the kleptocrats’ primary purpose has been to protect and enhance the wealth of the oligarchs that control Wall Street, Washington DC, and corporate America. They have achieved their goal, while destroying the middle class and sentencing unborn generations to a life sentence of debt servitude.

Yes, it's funny how easy it is to get people to lap this stuff up by changing a word here and there. I haven't figured out how to test it yet, but personally I suspect those with the strongest sense of superiority are the easiest to fool.

You can fund politicians to pass laws to legalize drugs, junk food, financial derivatives, speculation of hard earned savings in pensions, wars on countries, turning pricing on electronic exchanges into operator driven casinos etc. and practically anything which is determent to the health and wealth of the majority of the citizens for the benefit of the sponsors of the politicians. The interests of the majority of the population does not come into calculations while taking the decision to pass laws.

What could lead to the next phase in the collapse? One possible scenario is another 911 style attack and it's not like the US isn't asking for it by striking every conceivable target with drones.

Let there be no mistake, drone strikes are a bad policy. The consequences of these deeds will be enormous. This is an embarrassment to the United States and should be stopped immediately; we should apologize to the countries involved.

Of course that won't happen. Three years ago my friend who knows, told me to stay off the subways. How many inadvertent collateral damage deaths will be tolerated before something bad comes this way? I always believe that what goes around comes around, water seeks it's own level, we are due, and asking for it. What happens is anyone's guess.

We are set up for one big fucking blowoff bear, the only thing stopping it is the Feds promise to buy and backstop everything in sight. Good luck to you Bernanke!

A little perspective please. Consider the economies of Germany and the UK post WWII. Their dreams of empire had evaporated; their treasuries were empty; and their cities ravaged by bombing. Today they have better health care and social benefits than the US, and the Germans make better cars.

We will find our way back to pragmatism. We always have when forced to by the consequences of our greed and stupidity.

I hope you are right, I honestly and sincerely do. But no amount of pragmatism can surmount the insurmountable: http://www.usdebtclock.org/

The only way this is getting solved is by default /reset. If the $600T IRS/CDS derivatives exposure comes into play, well... there isn't even enough money in the world to cover that particular black hole.

Ah the Krugman Plan! Recovery after total destruction. Problem is we are Pre-Weimar and not Post Third Reich. Math is a bitch. I applaud the optimism, but I understand realism. You cannot fight math. Hang around. The truth shall set you free, but it will take critical thinking and an open mind. We always appreciate debate as it brings out our sentience.

I give high marks to this article. It exposes just how rotten and corrupt the US system has become. Now many will like to blame Obama and he deserves to be blamed, but Mr. Bush and his gang were no better, in fact, they had already put the collapse in place before the Obama took over.

We should remember though, that despite all the rot exposed in this article, Corporate profits are at an all time high, corporations have huge cash reserves, the upper 1% of income earners are experiencing large income growth and the most favorable tax rates since before the great depression of the 1930's. Be clear on this, the upper income brackets are doing fantastic, nobody can dispute that. But it is clear that the middle class is being destoryed and the poor are wards of the state. In the coming decade, fully 2/3's of all Americans will be needing government handouts to live lower class lives.

The rise of other industrial nations like China has exposed the American working class to vicious competition the likes of which Americans have never experienced.

The Bernanke and his Federal reserve criminals are bailing out and manipulating equities for the benefit of the top 1%, that is why their incomes continue to rise even is a nation that is really in a depression.

The end result will be more wars, they are coming. In Africa, in the Middle East and now the US plans to engage in wars in the Western pacific if they can goad China into a conflict.

Russia is a major target for NATO and the US Neo-Con administration. But Putin is not cooperating. He continues to build up a new modern Nuclear force of mobile missiles and new fleet ballistic missile submarines, along with huge investment in a wide range of new missiles for anti aircraft and surface attack functions. Russia has decided that they will not be attacked, they have decided to maintain the force needed to kill any force invading their territory. This makes the neo-cons very mad and itching to have a go at somebody who can't or won't fight back.

The USA must wage war as the economic collapse gains pace. On the domestic front, the police state and military preperations to use regular troops and drones to subdue any discontent are all in place now.

Now many will like to blame Obama andhe deserves to be blamed,but Mr. Bush and his gang were no better,in fact, they had already put the collapse in place before the Obama took over. (So in other words O just inherited it and couldn't do much if anything to stop it.)

points towards the fact you voted for O and still cannot fully admit the mistake.

This reminds me of that Italian cruise ship that sank off the sicilian islands. The people remember hearing a loud crash/bang/boom, they were all thrown to the other end of the rooms that they were in and then all the power went out. They all said they were panicked and scared until the ships captain "reassured" them that there was,

"no need to be alarmed. We just lost power in one of the generators. The crew will have it running very soon and the ship is still on course for its destination".

Can you believe he continued to repeat the same message even as the ship was capsized! It was not until over an hour later that they were told to abandon ship. The captain of the ship made that announcement and then proceeded to deploy the first lifeboat, for himself!!!!

The ship-sheep believed their captain and actually proceeded to carry on as though it were normal to get thrown clear across a room and slam through the dry wall.

Later they were told to stop for a bit and just take a swim in the mediterranean ocean and while they were at it, they might as well just swim to the nearest land mass and the ship would meet them there. "Jump in sheeple! The water is just fine!"

Of course I am only joking about the last sentence, but all the other ones are the absolute truth.

That captain may not be allowed to sail ships anymore, but he sure sounds like he should pave himself a career path in politics!

"The 600,000 University of Phoenix enrollees getting their on-line master’s degrees in basket weaving while sitting in their mother’s basement, subsidized with $20,000 loans from the taxpayer, didn’t count as unemployed"

Most of our problems can be solved with a few policy corrections. Cut defense 25%; enact single-payer health care; shut down the farm and energy subsidies; return tax rates to Clinton-era levels; and put more money into public education.

This will be hard politically, but there is no problem with the math. Other countries with lower GDP per capita provide better benefits to their poor and retirees without going bust. We can do it too.